My new friend, I will call her A (but she will know who I am talking about when she reads this), and her sweet daughter. They decided to begin their homeschooling journey again. I know it will be as rewarding as my experience has been with Poogie and TT.
It is a brave and hard step to take when you decide to take your child or children out of the school system be it public or private. It is heart wrenching to watch them "deal" with school, but not really enjoy it. I went through this for 5 months before pulling TT out. After the fact it has been the best thing I ever did for my children.
Good luck and God Bless A you will be an awesome homeschool mom!
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Monday, October 6, 2008
Fall Break, Yeah!
We decided to take fall break this week. After 10 weeks of school a break is due. Our weekend was fun and relaxing.
My hubby finally painted the floor of our front porch. It turned out lovely. I ended up purchasing a few mums and pumpkins to decorate the area because it looked so darn good.
Saturday night my hubby took me out on a date. He took me to Outback to eat. Believe it or not I had never really eaten there. I went for drinks and appetizers years ago, but did not eat a meal. We enjoyed steak and fried crawfish appetizers. It was a wonderful meal. Then, he took me to see the movie Eagle Eye. I had been wanting to see it so badly. It was an awesome thrill ride.
Sunday I scrapbooked and worked around the house. We went to eat at our favorite Mexican restaurant and then to Wally World for necessities for the upcoming week.
My goal for this week is to work out the kinks with our homeschooling schedule and curriculum. The first thing I addressed today was to make a schedule that allows me to spend equal time with both kids and address all subjects. It seems like Poogie is always pushed to the side for TT because he has so much to do. Plus, several subjects like history, science and foreign language get overlooked due to the lack of time.
I found what I hope will allow me to address all these issues on the Well Trained Mind forums board, the loop. I can't explain it very well as it took me sometime to understand the concept myself. However, I believe it offers us a day that will be more productive and less stressful.
I used today to work on new science lesson plans for TT. I decided to use the Horrible Science books I purchased at the beginning of the school year. I read several of the stories today in them, they are great. I will supplement the reading with activities from The Complete Book of Science 5-6, The Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia, and worksheets from Enchanted Learning.
I am going to continue with SOTW Volume 4 for TT, but we will complete a 4 week unit on elections first. I purchased a lapbook unit and will be adding reading selections and some great web sites to supplement. I will post that unit sometime this week.
I think that is quite enough for one day. Now off to bed to curl up with a good book and my hubby.
My hubby finally painted the floor of our front porch. It turned out lovely. I ended up purchasing a few mums and pumpkins to decorate the area because it looked so darn good.
Saturday night my hubby took me out on a date. He took me to Outback to eat. Believe it or not I had never really eaten there. I went for drinks and appetizers years ago, but did not eat a meal. We enjoyed steak and fried crawfish appetizers. It was a wonderful meal. Then, he took me to see the movie Eagle Eye. I had been wanting to see it so badly. It was an awesome thrill ride.
Sunday I scrapbooked and worked around the house. We went to eat at our favorite Mexican restaurant and then to Wally World for necessities for the upcoming week.
My goal for this week is to work out the kinks with our homeschooling schedule and curriculum. The first thing I addressed today was to make a schedule that allows me to spend equal time with both kids and address all subjects. It seems like Poogie is always pushed to the side for TT because he has so much to do. Plus, several subjects like history, science and foreign language get overlooked due to the lack of time.
I found what I hope will allow me to address all these issues on the Well Trained Mind forums board, the loop. I can't explain it very well as it took me sometime to understand the concept myself. However, I believe it offers us a day that will be more productive and less stressful.
I used today to work on new science lesson plans for TT. I decided to use the Horrible Science books I purchased at the beginning of the school year. I read several of the stories today in them, they are great. I will supplement the reading with activities from The Complete Book of Science 5-6, The Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia, and worksheets from Enchanted Learning.
I am going to continue with SOTW Volume 4 for TT, but we will complete a 4 week unit on elections first. I purchased a lapbook unit and will be adding reading selections and some great web sites to supplement. I will post that unit sometime this week.
I think that is quite enough for one day. Now off to bed to curl up with a good book and my hubby.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Is it Friday yet?
Whew, what a week. We are one day from completing our 10th week of homeschooling this year and I need a break. Things have begun to get to me. I have been evaluating things about our homeschool curriculum that are working and things that are not. What I have found is that for TT most of the curriculum is working, but not all. Writing, history and science are not working well.
The writing program is not structured enough for us. TT really needs good guidelines and instruction and Wordsmith just doesn't offer that. I have been doing some detective work and found a program I really like. One of the moms from our co-op brought her books to me today to look at and I was impressed. I just wish it wasn't so expensive. The program is called Write Shop and it is used at the local tutorial. Many of the moms have found it to be quite effective with reluctant writers like my son. I found it on ebay pretty cheap, I just have to bid on it.
Our history is also not working. We are doing SOTW volume 4. TT likes it okay, but it just doesn't offer enough info on the material. I think I will start doing unit studies again and using SOTW as a supplement. The activities in volume 4 are not that great either.
Finally, our science is dry. We need some spicing up. So I will be working on that also. We will be taking fall break next week and I hope to work out some of the kinks. We will see.
The writing program is not structured enough for us. TT really needs good guidelines and instruction and Wordsmith just doesn't offer that. I have been doing some detective work and found a program I really like. One of the moms from our co-op brought her books to me today to look at and I was impressed. I just wish it wasn't so expensive. The program is called Write Shop and it is used at the local tutorial. Many of the moms have found it to be quite effective with reluctant writers like my son. I found it on ebay pretty cheap, I just have to bid on it.
Our history is also not working. We are doing SOTW volume 4. TT likes it okay, but it just doesn't offer enough info on the material. I think I will start doing unit studies again and using SOTW as a supplement. The activities in volume 4 are not that great either.
Finally, our science is dry. We need some spicing up. So I will be working on that also. We will be taking fall break next week and I hope to work out some of the kinks. We will see.
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